Only one-third of current blockchain POCs hold promise for the enterprise

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Dive Brief:

Without a solid foundation, blockchain cannot be successfully built upon for enterprise tools. Yet only one-third of current blockchain proof of concepts provide enough basis for future development and innovation on the platform, according to Forrester's predictions for 2018.

The promise of blockchain — its ability to "fully enable bold platform and ecosystem strategies" while defending against cyberattacks — is a main part of the problem, according to the report. The expectations of blockchain outweigh its results.

Existing technologies could have remedied issues that companies enlisted blockchain to remedy, resulting in 80% of projects failing to give expected results, according to the report.

Dive Insight:

Blockchain is the buzzword word of the year, in company with AI and quantum computing. Advancements in the technology are relentlessly pursued, though the industry has made little progress.

Instead, blockchain remains an early-stage tech that companies are throwing money at without fully grasping what the true applications are.

The financial industry was first to use the tech, but blockchain's draw of transmissions audited through log data shows promise in other industries. Companies such as Microsoft and IBM are building up strong blockchain portfolios for enterprise applications.

Changing the culture is difficult for CIOs to prove worthwhile because blockchain is still in its infancy. Many proposed architectures of the technology lack typical key features of a blockchain platform, such as tokens, decentralization and an external consensus mechanism.

Blockchain threatens many established processes with a complete reorganization of existing or legacy systems and also disrupts the traditional handling of transactions. However, many IT leaders feeding into the blockchain hype may not even need to use the platform. Some technologies more developed and accessible today can solve CIOs problems without the large upfront investment and development required by blockchain.

Despite efforts to put blockchain into production, experts believe the winning blockchain platform is "one not yet in the market." The technology is expected to have slow growth until about 2030, when its business value-add will be $3.1 trillion.